For today, One Year Bible Online links here.
Strength and power applied without wisdom and knowledge will fail. Seek advice before entering into the contest. You will not prevail unless you weigh the advice from many advisers.
Let us follow the psalmist’s example. When we are overwhelmed by the troubles of this life and are sinking fast, let us continue to cry out to God. Even when I am about to drown in my troubles I will not lose faith in God. Even then I will remain faithful trusting Him to rescue me.
Paul warns us against living our lives by the standards of those who have closed their minds to God and hardened their hearts against Him. They live their lives for lustful pleasure and give themselves over to all sorts of impurities. Let us put off our old selves with their deceitful desires, desires which promise more pleasure than they deliver. Instead, let us be made new in our minds and our attitudes so that we may become like Christ. Every time I hear or say what I just wrote above the question comes to me, “But how do I do that?”
Fortunately, Paul offers an answer to that question as well. If we follow his answer with discipline it will allow us to be transformed. Step one, resolve to avoid falsehood as an easy out and only speak truth to our neighbors (remembering what Jesus told us about who are neighbor is). Step two, control our anger, do not allow our anger to cause us to sin. No matter how justified our anger, it does not justify doing that which is wrong. One part of that is letting our anger go and move on. We need to let our anger go at the end of the day, if not sooner. The longer we hold onto our anger, no matter how justified, the more likely we are to sin because of its influence on our thinking. Holding onto our anger gives the devil a foothold to influence our actions, let us not yield him any advantages.
Step three, if we have been living by stealing from others (and I think he means that in the most expansive meaning of “stealing”), let us stop doing so and start doing something useful so that we have excess to give to those in need. Step four, stop using foul and abusive language. Instead let us choose our words carefully so that they are helpful and encourage everyone who hears them to improve themselves.
The final step is twofold. Let go of bitterness and anger (which really goes back to step two), and all other evil behavior. Instead, let us be kind and tenderhearted, forgiving those who have sinned against us. Christ forgave us for our sins, we cannot be like Him unless we are willing to forgive those we believe have sinned against us. We cannot claim to have forgiven someone if we remain bitter and angry about what they have done.
God has declared that when the time is right, He will make His salvation known to us. He will lift people up and draw them to Him from far away lands. I read this as both a promise to the Church and to the people of Israel. In this passage, Isaiah predicts the coming of Christ as God’s servant, but he also predicts the return of the people of Israel to the land God promised Abraham’s descendants. When I read this part:
See, I will give a signal to the godless nations.
They will carry your little sons back to you in their arms;
they will bring your daughters on their shoulders.
It made me think of when the modern state of Israel was created following WWII. Countries from all over the world helped Jews go to the newly established state of Israel.
At the end of the passage there is this:
Who among you fears the Lord
and obeys his servant?
If you are walking in darkness,
without a ray of light,
trust in the Lord
and rely on your God.
Even if we cannot see the way in front of us, we can rely on God and He will direct us. It is better to be in darkness and trust in God than to make our own false light and rely on ourselves.